


all my senses

by tobito-dorito (jelly_tyson)



Series: all my senses [1]
Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, I love these nerds, excruciatingly soft, the one with the proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 07:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelly_tyson/pseuds/tobito-dorito
Summary: Warm breezes, salt air, soft touches, distant laughter. Love is a sensory experience.





	all my senses

"Do I dream?"

"I'm awake."

  
\- A Heart Full of Love, _Les Miserables_

............

Christen woke to the warmth of sunlight on her face. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept in this late.

The morning crept in from the windows, sun beaming through the palms. The island was quiet. Quieter than Portland, and certainly quieter than the constant bustle of camp from the last month. When Tobin had suggested they “go away for a few days”, Christen had nearly cried with relief.

It was the first time in months they didn’t have to see anyone else.

Christen glanced out the large window and watched as a gust of wind disrupted the trees. Waves crashed onto rocks in the distance. The day had begun, but there were no alarm clocks, no deadlines, no parades, and certainly no cameras waiting for her.

It felt like a dream.

............ 

Tobin knows that in her dreams, it’s always sunny. And though she’s asleep, her senses are awake.

She’s in a field somewhere. She lays down and closes her eyes, giving in to her other four senses.

The sunlight is warm on her face, the grass cool between her toes. There’s a warm breeze that tells her it is unmistakably summer.

She smells grass, sunscreen, and lavender shampoo. She smiles, knowing that Christen is somewhere nearby.

She hears laughter in the distance. The laughter is almost familiar, but she can’t determine why. Tobin closes her eyes more tightly, focusing on the sounds. The laughter is unstoppable. Howling, shrieking laughter.

The laughter comes from a child.

The corners of Tobin’s mouth turn upwards as the child’s sounds fill the air. There’s a chuckle nearby, barely loud enough to hear. This chuckle, Tobin recognizes.

She opens her eyes, expecting to be blinded by sunlight.

In a way, she is.

Christen is leaning over her and eclipsing the sun. Soft curls fall around her face. Her lips part into a quiet smile that sends a wave of warmth straight to her chest.

Christen moves the sunglasses away from Tobin’s face, pushing them back into her hair. Her fingers linger in her hair and Tobin sighs at the contact, drinking in the sight. She’s definitely dreaming. She’s lying in the grass, everything is warm and sunny, and Christen is looking at her like nothing in the world matters. Too good to be true.

She closes her eyes again, as Christen’s lips part on a whisper she can’t quite hear.

............

Christen closed her eyes and breathed in the morning: the sunlight on her face, the sounds of the waves, the smell of clean linens and salty air. She rolled on to her side and smiled at the sight before her.

Wisps of Tobin’s hair fell wildly around the pillow. Her mouth was open slightly and soft snores filled the silence between the two.

Christen watched as the rhythmic rise and fall of Tobin's chest, deep in sleep and lost in a dream. She wanted to kiss her awake - the proper way to wake someone up on a morning like this - but knew she would never be able to do so. This was the first morning in months that didn’t have an agenda, and Christen allowed herself to breathe. Instead she adjusted herself in the bed so that she could get a better look at the woman beside her. She rested her head in her hand and propped herself onto her elbow, trying not to shift the mattress too much. Tobin hummed softly in response and smiled, never waking from sleep.

She stared at the sleeping form before her. At the muscled arm resting on top of the covers, toned and tanned from decades of training. Her eyes moved downward to the faded scars below the left elbow, from the time that a nine-year-old Tobin Heath unsuccessfully dismounted from the monkey bars. She paused when she reached Tobin’s hands, giving in to the shiver that crept up her neck.

She loved her hands for what they could do in private, but she loved the feeling of her own hands in them even more.

Tobin loves to touch. It’s the hardest part of keeping this part of them secret from the world. The hand that lingers at her elbow longer than usual during a water break. The brush of fingers not quite intertwining on the bus. The hand resting in the familiar spot just above her hips during a huddle. The crushing weight of a celebratory hug that leaves Christen breathless in more ways than one. Somebody is always watching them, somebody always has a camera, so they are careful.

There is nothing Christen loves more than the feeling of _them_ when the cameras go away. The hand that lingers at her elbow as Tobin hands her a warm mug of coffee. The brush of fingers not quite intertwining as they walk the dogs along the beach. A hand resting in the familiar spot just above her hips as they cook side-by-side. The crushing weight of a hug when picking the other up from the airport.

Those were the moments that Christen lived for.

Tobin’s eyes pinched tighter closed for a moment and brought Christen back to reality. The corner of her lips turned upwards as she wondered what the other woman was dreaming about. Her eyes followed the crinkled lines of Tobin’s eyes, pinched in concentration but a reminder of the years they have shared together.

_We’re not old_, she can practically hear Tobin whining. _Just distinguished._

They aren’t old. _Not by any stretch of the imagination_, Christen muses. Time is augmented in the world of professional football. One day you’re nineteen, and on the field the night before a biology lab. A year later, you’re playing in the Olympic games. A few years later, you’re watching another player bring _their_ calculus book with them to camps. The only thing to mark the changing of time is change.

When you do all of this with the right person, time is meaningless. Time flies, and time stands still.

They aren’t _old_, they’re familiar. They’ve been with each other through the best and worst of their lives. They’ve won gold medals and lost in agony. They’ve navigated different cities, different time zones, different countries, but have never been far apart. Even when her world was taken from her, Tobin was there, holding her hand for what felt like months. Their past was what brought them here.

But in this moment, Christen saw a future. She saw sunlight. She saw grass and trees and an open field. She saw a toddler screaming and laughing in the distance, a tiny soccer ball flying through the air. She saw the same sleeping form next to her.

She saw it all.

Christen couldn’t wait any longer. She wanted the future to be the present.

She quietly brushed the stray hairs away from Tobin’s face, combing her fingers through the softness. Tobin shifted beneath the touch, not yet fully awake but no longer dreaming. The words fell from Christen’s mouth without hesitation.

“Marry me,” she whispered.

Tobin’s body still felt warm, but she couldn’t feel the grass beneath her anymore. Smells of the cool breeze and sunscreen were replaced by salty air and clean sheets, but the lavender shampoo remained. The lines between dream and reality were still a blur. She woke slowly, sighing into the feeling of soft, slender fingers tangling in her hair.

“Marry me,” Christen repeated.

Tobin smiled. She was definitely still dreaming.

She finally opened her eyes to the same sight from the dream. Curls fell around Christen’s face as she smiled down at her, green eyes filled with hope and softness and life. Her hand moved through Tobin’s hair once more, eventually coming to rest near Tobin’s jaw. Christen traced her thumb across her cheek as she repeated the words again.

Tobin’s eyes widened. _That part hadn’t been a dream?_ She searched the other woman’s face for an explanation and furrowed her brow in confusion. If she could move, she would’ve pinched herself, but Tobin found herself paralyzed. Surely she still had to be dreaming.

“What did you say?” Tobin wondered how she had even managed to speak the words.

Christen huffed a breathless laugh, still tracing the lines of her face. Tobin’s reaction hadn’t fazed her a bit.

“Marry me.”

Tobin held her breath as Christen smiled again. The big, broad, goal-scoring, light-up-the-room smile that was always accompanied by crinkly eyes and love and _life_. She brought her hand to cover Christen’s, seeking her touch. Her other hand moved from under the sheets to Christen’s face and Christen turned into it, kissing her palm gently.

This really wasn’t a dream.

Time stood still for a moment as Tobin’s heart soared. She wasn’t dreaming. This was _real_. This was Tobin and Christen and nothing else. And she was pretty sure Christen just proposed. Does it count as proposing if it isn’t a question? Tobin didn’t care. Her stare met green eyes and nothing could possibly be important enough to make her move.

Then she remembered.

In an instant, Tobin rolled out of the bed and hastily threw on a pair of shorts, practically sprinting out of the room.

For a moment, Christen was panicked. She had never seen Tobin move so fast in the morning, except for the one regretful morning that followed the gas station sushi. She was pretty sure that food poisoning wasn’t the cause of this morning’s energy, though, as she listened to the rustling of zippers and the grumbled _where IS it?_ coming from the other room.

Instead, she sighed and continued to rest on her elbow, impatiently waiting for the other woman to return.

Tobin rummaged through her bag. Realizing it was harder to distinguish the shapes without glasses, she ran to retrieve them from her nightstand. She swore as she collided with the door frame on her way back in and Christen willed herself not to laugh.

“Babe, what – ” Before she could finish her sentence, Tobin was already sprinting back out of the room. She wondered what Tobin could possibly be needing out of her bag so badly that it required glasses and running so early in the morning.

“I’ll be right back! Don’t go anywhere!” She shouted back, voice still husky from sleep. “_There_ it is,” She said to herself, eventually finding the what had been safely tucked away inside her sneakers. She tossed it in the air and silently congratulating herself for finding it, then stood and began to walk back to the bedroom.

When she reached the doorway, she paused. The sight of Christen in an oversized and tattered _Rose City Riveters_ t-shirt, lounging in bed, her long, bare legs peeking out from beneath the sheets and green eyes still shining in the island sunlight, was almost too much for her. Tobin leaned against the doorway and brushed her free hand through her hair, feeling suddenly nervous. She glanced out the window, then at the clock.

“You beat me by about... ten hours,” She said with a shy smile. “Christen Press, always a few steps ahead.”

Christen’s chin moved upwards and her eyes narrowed, drinking in the sight but struggling to understand the words. She ignored the feeling low in her stomach that always seemed to accompany the sight of Tobin in her glasses and focused instead on the words. As Tobin moved forward into the room, Christen caught a glimpse of the small box in her hand.

“I was going to ask you tonight, but you beat me to it.”

Tobin knelt beside the bed with hunched shoulders as she opened the box and tentatively placed it on the sheets before her. The gold band reflected in the sunlight as Tobin spoke.

“I was waiting for sunset. Had a speech and everything. I wanted to do it yesterday, but we were both so tired,”

Christen hummed in agreement, remembering how they had fallen asleep on the beach twice before finally retiring to the cabin.

“I’ve wanted to do it for years,” Tobin whispered, finally looking up. A smile creeped on to her face as her eyes found Christen’s. The nerves she’d felt earlier now replaced by strength as she continued. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted to.”

“Tobin,”

“A few months ago, I went to LA. I talked to your dad and everything. And I bought a ring. _The_ ring. And I’ve been trying to find the right moment to ask you since then. I can’t believe you beat me to it,” She laughed.

“You brought this with you to France?”

“_That’s_ what you took out of that story?” Tobin reached for Christen’s left hand, tracing the knuckle of her ring finger, silently asking permission.

“Sorry, continue,”

“Anyway. I had a speech and everything. But that all feels wrong now. It feels… forced. But nothing with you is ever forced.” She removed the ring from the box and slid it onto Christen’s finger before covering her hand with both of her own.

“I want to wake up like that every day. Next to you. Every day. For the rest of our lives.”

Christen watched as Tobin’s smile widened with the final phrase. The words came easy to her. They were practiced. _For the rest of our lives_. It sounded right.

“Come here,” Christen said.

Tobin climbed back into the bed and draped her arm around the other woman. She sunk into the sheets and buried herself next to her, limbs tangling beneath the sheets. She dropped her head to Christen’s collarbone and breathed her in before placing a kiss to her neck.

“Well?” She asked through barely parted lips. The feel of cool breath on warm skin sent a shiver up Christen’s spine. Christen chuckled.

“I asked you first,” She teased.

Tobin pulled away from the softness of Christen’s neck and stared at her in awe.

“Yeah,” she stammered, “But I bought a ring!” There was the smallest ounce of heartache in the words, but not enough to worry Christen.

“You didn’t even ask me the question,” Christen replied. She tried to remain firm but the words came out strangled with laughter.

Tobin shook her head and smiled in disbelief. So much for a serious moment.

“Chris,” She whispered, her tone stoic but soft. “Will you marry me?”

Christen pushed her head back into the pillow and stared at the ceiling. She pursed her lips dramatically and contemplated her response. Tobin groaned and rolled her eyes at the terrible one-woman show her girlfriend was putting on.

Two could play at that game, Tobin thought, and she tapped at her wrist. _Chris, you’re taking too long,_ hung unspoken in the air.

Finally, Christen responded. “Can you reach the top drawer of my nightstand?”

It was certainly not the answer Tobin was expecting. Her brow furrowed as Christen glanced towards the side of the bed.

“Can you reach it? There’s something in there for you,”

Tobin rolled over and opened the drawer, empty except for a red velvet box. Christen bit her lower lip as she watched Tobin close the drawer and hand her the box.

“I didn’t think you could hear me. I thought you were still dreaming,” Christen started. She opened the box and slid its contents onto Tobin’s ring finger. “I definitely didn’t think you’d run out of bed,”

“Chris, I – ”

“I know,” she winked. “Tobin… when I look at you, I see my future. Our future.”

A gust of wind rustled the trees and Tobin remembered the senses from her dream. Warm air, cool grass. Lavender shampoo. Soft hands, always fitting perfectly in her own. The screams and laughter of a child, and the echoes of a laugh she committed to memory years ago. The dream wasn’t a figment of her imagination, but a prediction. The future. _Their future_. Their future watching their _child_ barreling towards them, bare feet tearing up freshly-cut grass. It was too much.

Christen watched as a single tear fell from Tobin’s face.

“Hey, none of that,” She sighed as she brushed it away. Tobin shut her eyes and willed the rest not to fall as she turned into Christen’s touch. A moment passed before Tobin let out a chuckle.

“I can’t believe this is our proposal story. Alex is going to be so disappointed.”

Christen laughed. Alex would understand. After all, they had never been conventional. “I can’t believe I beat you by ten hours.”

“I can’t believe you bought a ring,”

“I can’t believe we’re getting married.” Christen whispered, twirling the gold band around her finger.

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely don't go here, but it's safe to say I've fallen in love with these two. 
> 
> This is all fiction.  
(the reminder always helps)


End file.
